The Good Gut Guide: Help for IBS, Ulcerative Colitis, Crohn's Disease, Diverticulitis, Food Allergies and Other Gut Problems. Stephanie Zinser
distress or is associated with worry or panic.
‘When it first happened, I was 28 and only three months’ pregnant with my first child, so to sit on the loo and discover I was bleeding gave me an enormous fright. At first I thought I was having a miscarriage – my heart stopped beating and I was shaking. After a minute or so, I realized it wasn’t because of the baby, but was coming from behind. I was relieved, of course, that it wasn’t a miscarriage, but still shocked to see blood, even when I guessed it was probably just something simple like haemorrhoids.
I have since experienced a lot of bleeding, as I’ve had problems with haemorrhoids through all four of my pregnancies. And you know what? It still unnerves me, because even though I know it won’t kill me, I also know it’s not “normal”.’
Gill, 42, a mother-of-four, who has been troubled by haemorrhoids for many years
How Can You Tell if You’re Bleeding?
The answer may seem obvious – bright red blood passing out of your bowel. You’d be a fool not to notice, right? Well, not necessarily. People are often in a hurry, preoccupied or distracted, and some of us are more likely to make a visual inspection of our bowel movements than others. It’s human nature – we all have different levels (and areas) of curiosity. If bleeding comes from high up in the digestive system, it may not look bright red at all, but may be black and tarry – we may not even recognize it as blood. Similarly, women having a period may easily confuse blood that actually comes from their bowels with menstrual flow. Lastly, blood may occasionally be present even though we don’t see it at all – this is called ‘occult’, or hidden, bleeding and can be tested for by doctors.
Because doctors take bleeding seriously, they will normally ask several questions about it, so it’s a good idea to think about when and how your bleeding shows itself. What colour is it? Is it bright red or dark, even black? Is it mixed in with your stools, or does it appear as a streak on the toilet paper? Does it only happen during a bowel movement, or at other times as well? Have you noticed any other symptoms like diarrhoea, pain, tiredness or itching?
What is Bleeding a Sign Of?
Bleeding, although it may be alarming, doesn’t necessarily mean that there is a serious problem. It is actually a fairly common complaint, affecting over 15 per cent of us at some point or other in our lives.
Bleeding happens for many reasons. The delicate lining of our stomach and intestines is highly vascular – this means that millions of small blood vessels are extremely close to the surface in order for our blood to absorb the nutrients we need as food progresses through the gut. Anything that upsets this lining is likely to cause bleeding. Helicobacter pylori, the bacterium that is now known to cause the majority of stomach and duodenal ulcers, irritates the gut lining and makes it bleed. (Even an excess of alcohol can irritate the delicate lining and cause tiny blood vessels to rupture, spilling blood into the digestive tract.) Simply treated problems like haemorrhoids are the most common cause of bleeding, although proctitis, polyps, anal fistulas, anal fissures and rectal prolapses can also cause it. The most serious causes of bleeding from the back passage include intussusception (in children), diverticulitis, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, bowel cancer and anal cancer.
When to Seek Help
A doctor must always check bleeding. However, it is usually caused by a minor problem, so don’t let any signs of bleeding send you into an uncontrolled panic.
Self-Help for Bleeding
Mucus is a slimy secretion that is constantly produced by virtually the entire gastrointestinal tract. Special cells are responsible for producing the mucus secretions, which coat the gastric and intestinal membranes. Mucus helps not only to protect the sensitive lining of the stomach and intestines against the strong acids that digest our food, but it also helps food slide more easily through our guts. The reason we don’t normally see it is because the mucus becomes bound up with faecal waste matter, becoming invisible in the process.
What Can Mucus Be a Sign Of?
In itself, mucus is an innocent and harmless by-product of the digestive process. But there are occasions when we may notice it. If we’ve been unwell and not eating, it is possible that some mucus will be visible when we open our bowels, although it will still be mixed up with other body secretions, like bile from the gall bladder. People who have had their colon surgically ‘disconnected’ from their anus always notice that they start to discharge mucus from their tail end. It was ever thus, but once waste food matter is no longer being shunted through the anus, the one thing that is still being produced in that area – mucus – becomes very obvious.
Haemorrhoids